FIFA World ranking: Nigeria unmoved at 42nd spot

Nigeria’s male football team remains glued to its 42nd ranking in the world, according to the latest ranking released by FIFA today.

Nigeria was placed in the same spot in the October ranking. Nigeria’s female team was however ranked 35th in the world, with USA, German and Japanese women, in the top three.

In the male ranking, ten African countries surfaced in the top 50 countries in the world, with Algeria leading the pack at the 18th position, followed by Tunisia at 22nd, Ivory Coast 24th, Senegal 35th, Ghana 37th, Guinea 38th, Cape Verde 39th, Cameroon 41st and Mali 49th.

The November edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking reveals very little change in the top ten, with the top seven positions unaltered from last month and world champions Germany still out in front ahead of Argentina and Colombia.

France, however, are now in joint seventh place together with Portugal (7th, up 2).

In the top 20, England (13th, up 7), Romania (15th, up 6) and Czech Republic (17th, up 5) have all made good progress.

Guinea (38th, up 17) have climbed into the top 50 on the back of two victories in CAF Africa Cup of Nations 2015 qualifiers, as have Mali (49th, up 9), with their rise coming at the expense of Trinidad and Tobago (54th, down 5) and Egypt (60th, down 22).

As a result, the regional composition of the top 50 has shifted slightly in favour of Africa (10 teams, up 1). With the exception of CONCACAF (3 teams in the top 50, down 1), there are no other changes to the number of top 50 teams of the other confederations (UEFA: 31; CONMEBOL: 6; AFC: 0; OFC: 0).

Further down the ranking, the Faroe Islands (105th, up 82) have made considerable progress thanks to their surprise victory over Greece (25th, down 7) in the UEFA EURO 2016 qualifiers. The other teams to have climbed more than 20 places are Jamaica (71st, up 42), Cuba (79th, up 33), San Marino (180th, up 28), Haiti (68th, up 25), Liechtenstein (130th, up 25), and Thailand (144th, up 21). For San Marino, their draw with Estonia – also in the EURO 2016 qualifiers – sees them climb off the bottom of the table for the first time in six-and-a-half years.

A total of 150 new ‘A’ international matches have been taken into account for the November edition of the FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, bringing the total number of matches evaluated in 2014 to 817. Sixty-one of these matches were part of continental qualifiers in Europe, Africa and the CONCACAF region, with the other 89 being friendly matches.